Although I have climbed up and down the financial ladder, I have never been truly poor or rich until my fourth marriage to Gregory: being stunned by my husband’s verbal abuse and distrust early on. Rage and sobbing permeated my corralled heart. I, being IN love with Gregory broke me. Sometimes I could not sleep; so angry and fearful that he wouldn’t trust me; being innocent of his claims that I was lying about having affairs.

Being a Marriage and Family Therapist; I have been in therapy (as any effective therapist needs to be), where I spoke dripping tears during two previous marriages, skimming the surface of my grief: missing my father since his dying of a sudden heart attack in 1977.

Eventually, during one fight with Gregory, my tears sprayed forth like a fire hydrant letting loose: suddenly I could see me fighting with my mother! She forced religion down my throat but my heart refused and began to fight at the age of ten. My spirit rebelled!

I had no consciousness, or awareness of the depth of my childhood pain before Gregory and I “fell” in love.

Finally, I gave him my caring ultimatum: we both go to the Primal Center in Venice, California for therapy as I was hoping to become a primal therapist like John Lennon sings of, and to save our marriage. Gregory had begun therapy in Ithaca, NY and was on medication which helped minimally in that he became able to work after two years of unemployment. It did not stop his distrust of me.

While in California, we’d spent my $10,000 savings on therapy. We worked enough to cover living expenses: he as a private duty LPN and myself as a private duty RN. I worked 2 days a week relieving the full-time day RN until she took a week off for a nose job, as she had a dream of becoming an actress. I was hoping to save enough money to move back home to NY and build up my private practice again as we were broke, beginning to depend on credit cards to live frugally and also pay for Gregory’s desire to continue therapy in California, which he had begun months after I had.

One day I came to work to hear that the full-time RN had died on the doctor’s office operating table, due to some heart problem. So, I began working seven days a week. Her broken heart helped me save $5000 my last month in California so I didn’t have to drive the Uhaul back home, broke.